This weekend, the casino giant is hosting its eighth annual M.B.A. Poker Championship, part of a recruiting event for its management trainee program.

The company expects more than 400 b-school students and graduates to ante up at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, starting Friday. Buy-ins for the Texas Hold-em event range from $85 to $225.

To be clear, candidates aren’t hired based on their tournament wins. But an appreciation of the game doesn’t hurt.

“Poker players use particular skill sets – they’re very analytical, they’re very strategic in their approach to the game,” says Paul King, corporate director of talent acquisition at Caesars. “We’re looking for those types of skills.”

King says a thriving network of student-run poker clubs at top business schools around the country, including University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, has helped spur interest in the event. Students from Harvard Business School, Stanford Graduate School of Management and MIT Sloan School of Management have also participated, King says.

Caesars generally hires between 20 and 25 summer interns and full-time employees into the President’s Associate program each year. A handful of new recruits come from the tournament, King says.

Applicants can attend a networking reception with more than 100 Caesars executives Friday night, and then sit in on information sessions and more formal interviews throughout the weekend. Caesars isn’t the only one eying talent at the tournament; it invites sponsors to meet candidates as well. (This year, there’s only one other sponsor: International Game Technology, a gambling equipment company.)

Even those who don’t land a job may walk away with a sweet prize: 70% of the buy-in is expected to be awarded to top winners, who can use some of their earnings to secure spots in the World Series of Poker Main Event. The rest of the money goes to charity.

Historically, the recruiting calendar at b-schools has been chock full of cocktail receptions, networking dinners and information sessions. But as the job market grows more fragmented and a broader range of companies seeks to tap M.B.A. talent, a number of firms try to differentiate themselves with “experiential opportunities,” says Pulin Sanghvi, assistant dean and director of the Career Management Center at Stanford’s business school.

For example, he says, beer companies may walk applicants through the brewing process, giving candidates a close look at the ins and outs of a company. Interviewers, in turn, can assess applicants’ passion for the product outside a formal interview setting.

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Written and edited by The Wall Street Journal’s Management & Careers group, At Work covers life on the job, from getting ahead to managing staff to finding passion and purpose in the office. Tips, questions? email us.